discovery: Emscher Island

Emsher Island, in the Rhur region of Germany was at one time home to coal and steel industries, and one of the biggest producers of these materials in Europe. But as the economical landscape changed, and these industries lost importance, the region fell apart and had been mostly lost to terrible pollution anyway.

The government of the Rhur region created an initiative called IBA or Industrial Building Exhibition which undertook to revitalize and restore the area. This project is now one of the largest renaturation projects in the world. To coinside with this renaturation and restoration, EMSCHERKUNST.2010, a very large scale public art project, will take place on the island that stretches out for 34 km between the Emscher River and the Rhine-Herne Canal.

More info here .

re: happiness

After posting about happiness (below) I started to whittle away at the 157 e-flux emails in my inbox, that I've been neglecting for, oh, two months. Yikes. Well I got it down to 41 and stumbled across this exhibition: Glück... happens , featuring some pretty amazing artists such as Mona Hatoum and Runa Islam. The gallery, Kunstpalais in Erlagen, Germany, has just undergone two years of renovations and is open for the first time again.


(Alejandro Vidal, One second burns for a billion years (still), 2007, video projection
Image courtesy of e-flux.)

And the premise of this exhibition you ask? Happiness. How coincidental. According to the press release, happiness is not the kind of subject matter that generally turns up in art oeuvres. The 15 artists in the show, 10 of which made new pieces expressly for this exhibition, exhibited work that regarded the perception of happiness. We so desperately seek happiness that often we just lead ourselves to unhappiness. The works in this exhibition state hard questions as well as easy answers.

Check out the Kunstpalais and also the interesing work of Runa Islam, one of my tutors from my time in Leeds! She also has a show currently at the Musée d'art Contemporaine de Montréal (see side bar for website).